蜜桃影像

One way to look at the politics of American Catholics is to borrow a concept for a political party that includes a broad spectrum of beliefs, the “big tent.”

“Catholicism is such a big tent religion and there are so many American Catholics that at scale we tend to reflect the overall voting patterns of the country,” said Father Sam Sawyer, SJ, president and editor-in-chief of America magazine, during a Q&A on Oct. 15 with President Eduardo Peñalver as part of the Presidential Speaker Series. “So, in that sense, it's almost a tautology that Catholics will vote for whoever is the winning candidate.”

Launched in 2023 by President Peñalver, the Presidential Speakers Series features well-known thinkers and academics discussing freedom of speech, viewpoint diversity and other timely subjects.

America magazine, headquartered in New York City, was founded in 1909 and is published by the Jesuits of the United States, offering readers news and opinion about politics and culture with a Catholic perspective. Prior to entering the Society of Jesus and before his ordination in 2014, Father Sawyer worked as a software engineer and spent a year as a middle school teacher.

In describing the role America plays in the U.S. media landscape, Fr. Sawyer says journalists at the magazine see themselves as offering readers insight into the thinking of Catholics from the Catholic social teaching tradition.

“But that actually has much broader purchase than just people who are formally affiliated with the church,” he said.

Though Fr. Sawyer’s discussion with President Peñalver touched on many subjects, one of the themes of their chat was the subject of divisions that have cleaved the United States, which aren’t alien to American Catholics either but don’t play out in the polls predictably.

“Catholics have cross commitments on a number of issues,” Fr. Sawyer said. “Whether it's on life issues like abortion, they might tend more toward a conservative politics. On questions of immigration and other matters of social concerns or social welfare, they might tend more toward a left or progressive politics. And so Catholics haven't been able to be fully captured by one party or another.”

Commenting on a remark from President Peñalver, who offered the idea that a virtue could be constructed from Catholics embracing a kind of "political homelessness,” Fr. Sawyer said:

“I think a lot of polarization within the church right now is basically people standing on their own ground saying, ‘This is the common ground, everyone should be here.’ I think that conversion of heart to want to move yourself toward the common ground, or to allow yourself to be destabilized, I think that's required to make that virtue out of political homelessness and find it as a place we can be together.”

The next guest of The Presidential Speakers Series features Mónica Guzmán, author of the 2025 SU common text I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times, 5-6 p.m., Nov. 19, in Pigott Auditorium. to be part of the discussion.